


very cursed but incredibly fortunate

by hailingstars



Series: unbelievably unlikely (febuwhump 2020) [18]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Embarrassed Peter Parker, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Light Angst, Peter Parker is a Mess, Teacher Tony Stark, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Tony joins the pta at midtown high, Tony teaches home economics, cause Morgan's school wasn't enough, febuwhump 2020, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22820695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: “Oh, hey Pete,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world that he was there, in his high school. Mr. Stark’s eyes danced around the locker lined hallway, then finally landed on Peter.“Um, what’re doing here?”“There’s a PTA meeting,” he told him. He checked his watch, then patted him on the shoulder. “Gotta go, Pete. I’m gonna be late, and so are you, right? Next class starts in two?”Mr. Stark stepped to the side to try and tried moving past him, but Peter blocked him, determined to find some real answers, or at least whine a little bit in his direction.“Mr. Stark, this is very cursed. You can’t be here.”“Cursed?” Mr. Stark frowned, then looked around the crowded hallway. “Where are we? A high school or the enchanted forest?”ORTony joins the PTA at Midtown High, and Peter's attempt to make him quit only ends in him taking a teaching position, as the Home Economics teacher.Febuwhump day 20: mental health
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: unbelievably unlikely (febuwhump 2020) [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619662
Comments: 91
Kudos: 723
Collections: Lost and Found Irondad Fics





	very cursed but incredibly fortunate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SioraiDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SioraiDragon/gifts).



> gifted to SioraiDragon, for giving me the idea of Midtown PTA Tony!! it's not exactly what you said in the comments, but I'm hoping to add Flash's parents eventually !! :)

Peter knew he shouldn’t.

Not again. Not for the third day in a row, but he knew he was going to, anyway.

He stuffed his bookbag in his locker, shut it with a slam, and turned, ready to hurry down the hallway and out the back door of Midtown High before the next bell rang. He was halfway there, so close to his freedom, when he was stopped in his tracks by the very last person he expected to see at his school.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Oh, hey Pete,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world that he was there, in his high school. Mr. Stark’s eyes danced around the locker lined hallway, then finally landed on Peter.

“Um, what’re doing here?”

“There’s a PTA meeting,” he told him. He checked his watch, then patted him on the shoulder. “Gotta go, Pete. I’m gonna be late, and so are you, right? Next class starts in two?”

Mr. Stark stepped to the side to try and tried moving past him, but Peter blocked him, determined to find some real answers, or at least whine a little bit in his direction.

“Mr. Stark, this is very cursed. You can’t be here.”

“Cursed?” Mr. Stark frowned, then looked around the crowded hallway. “Where are we? A high school or the enchanted forest?”

“How do you even have time to be in two different PTAs?” asked Peter, wondering just how long Tony had been coming in and out of his high school, and whether or not he knew all about his own irregular comings and goings to and from the school.

“It’s not really a problem,” Mr. Stark told him. “I’m, uh, temporarily suspended from Morgan’s.”

“What? Why?”

“That’s another story for time,” he said. He put his arm around him, turning him around and walking with him towards his fifth period class “But hey, this is gonna be a good thing. We’ll get to spend more time together. I can meet all your friends. Walk you to class. Oh look, we’re here.”

“Mr. Stark – “

“-Nope, time to learn.”

Mr. Stark released him and gave him a push towards the door, just as the bell started to the ring.

He had no choice but to awkwardly shuffled into fifth period, without his books but with a knot suspicion in the pit of his stomach that Mr. Stark knew exactly all about Peter’s newly formed habit of ditching fifth period.

Peter sunk in his desk and propped his head up with his hand.

He stuck by his original statement. This was very cursed.

*

“May,” said Peter. He looked down at his food and moved it around his plate with his chopsticks. “Do you remember when you and Mr. Stark had that argument about boundaries?”

“You mean after he tried to have Friday installed in our apartment?” she asked. Peter nodded. “Yes, vividly.”

“Okay well I think you need to have another conversation with him. He’s completely lost his mind. He’s joined the PTA at my school and- “

“-Oh, I know,” said May. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“W-what?” Peter’s mouth hung open. He dropped his chopsticks and had never felt more betrayed.

“He just wants to be involved in your life. I think it’s sweet.”

“Hasn’t Pepper told you about Jan?”

May laughed and took a sip of her diet coke. “I guess it’s a good thing there isn’t a Jan at your school.”

“You don’t get it,” said Peter, with a groan. He resisted the urge to throw his head down in his plate in frustration. “There’s _always_ a Jan.”

May gave him a look. A humoring one, that usually meant she thought he was being ridiculous, and that particular conversation was over. Peter spent the rest of their dinner pushing food around his food, sulking, and listening to May talk about various struggling of balancing her job with her volunteer work.

*

After his attempt to boot Mr. Stark from the PTA failed, Peter didn’t have any other option. He got into the car and drove to the lake house, ignoring the fact that it was late, on a school night, and by the time he got there, it was nearing one in the morning.

Mr. Stark was sat out on the porch when Peter drove up the dusty driveway. To his shock, he wasn’t surprised to see him. It was almost as if he were expecting him.

Peter slammed the car door shut and marched towards him, frustrated and angry that Mr. Stark was getting a confession out of him this soon.

Truth was, he’d do anything to get the man out of his school both he revealed any embarrassing information or, more likely, started a rivalry with of his friends’ parents.

“I’ve been skipping fifth period,” he told him.

Mr. Stark didn’t move from his chair, didn’t even blink. “Yeah, I know. You come all the way out here to tell me that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I confess. Now will you quit the PTA?”

Mr. Stark looked him over, giving Peter the impression that he was thinking, trying to read something from his body language, and it made Peter shift from foot to foot anxiously. He patted the chair next to him, and because he didn’t have much of a choice, Peter walked up onto the porch and sat down next to him.

“It isn’t lost on me your fifth period is astronomy,” said Mr. Stark. “It’s just an elective, and you’re almost as much as a genius as me, so I know you’re not struggling with the course work.”

Peter looked straight ahead, out at the lake and the sky above it. Almost like a taunt, the stars and the moon were out, shining bright, and making Peter wish he were normal. That he could sit in a classroom and learn about space without spazzing out.

“You’ve been through a lot, Pete,” said Mr. Stark. “You died on an alien planet. It’s completely normal for you to… not be okay.”

“I just,” said Peter. “Something happens when we pull out our textbooks and see the pictures and Mr. Kirkley starts talking about gases and planets and I – I can’t breath and my heart starts racing and I feel like I might die.”

“It’s called a panic attack, kid,” said Mr. Stark.

Peter knew the term. Logically, and faintly, he suspected he might be suffering from anxiety, but it was different when Mr. Stark laid it out like that, when it was stated simply, and Peter couldn’t run from it anymore.

“I got them too, after the wormhole, still do sometimes,” said Mr. Stark.

He supposed he could take from comfort from that. If Iron Man suffered with anxiety, maybe he could stop feeling so weak when couldn’t sit through his astronomy elective.

“So,” said Peter. “Are you gonna quit the PTA now?”

“Quit?” Mr. Stark sounded offended, outraged, like Peter had presented him with something gross and unreasonable. “If I quit how can I help you?”

“I thought you’d probably just make me go to therapy and track my phone so I wouldn’t skip.”

“Therapy’s a given,” he told him. “But I think I have a better plan for fifth period.”

Peter didn’t like the look in Mr. Stark’s eyes. He knew, from experience, it was usually followed with some crazy scheme, and he didn’t expect it to mean anything less here.

Mr. Stark stood up from his chair, pulled Peter up from his chair and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Rest up, Pete,” he said. “Might as well stay the night, yeah? We’ll drive into school together in the morning.”

He was fulfilled with dread when his head hit the pillow, but it was a safe sort of dread. He knew that whatever embarrassment was inevitably coming his way with whatever ill-advised scheme Mr. Stark was cooking up in his brain, it at least wouldn’t be as terrifying as a panic attack.

*

Mr. Stark’s plan just took a couple days to enact his plan.

It felt like a lot less than that to Peter, felt like one second he was on his way to astronomy, and the next he was being informed his schedule had been changed, as instructed and supplied with the new one.

His stomach dropped out of his body when he read over it and it was exactly the same, except for fifth period.

Instead of Astronomy with Mr. Kirkley it read Home Economic with Professor Stark.

“Oh my god,” Peter muttered, stuffing his new schedule in his pocket. “This can’t be happening.”

When he walked into the classroom assigned to Home Economics, and saw Mr. Stark sitting at the teacher’s desk, leaned back in the chair with his feet up on the desk, Peter knew it was bizarre enough to be true.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispered, as other students, his _peers_ started pouring into the classroom. Flash and Betty claimed desks up in the front. Ned and MJ sat next to each other in the middle row. “What are you doing?”

“I fixed it. Now you don’t have astronomy and get to hang out with me instead,” said Mr. Stark, removing his feet from the desk and sitting up. “You’re welcome.”

“But- “

The bell rang, cutting him out.

“Go on, take a seat, or I’ll give you detention.”

“Oh my god,” Peter muttered under his breath. Out of the things Peter expected Mr. Stark to do, this was the very last on the list. Actually, it wasn’t even on the list. Who let him become a teacher? Peter needed to know.

He threw himself down in the desk next to Ned, who looked at him with excitement, mouthing that this was awesome. Peter wanted to disappear.

“Alright kids,” said Mr. Stark, sauntering up to the whiteboard.

He wore an AC/DC t-shirt under a black suit jacket, paired with tennis shoes and jeans. Idly Peter wondered if he could get him fired for violating the staff dress code.

“Who can tell me the most important part about running a household?”

Betty’s hand shot into the air. “Creating a peaceful and productive environment for rest and learning.”

“No, wrong,” said Mr. Stark. Betty frowned and looked confused. Mr. Stark moved on to the next student.

“Making sure our home’s carbon footprint is as small as possible,” said Abe.

“Nope, wrong again.” Mr. Stark took the cap off a purple marker and began writing on the board. “The most important part about running your household is running your household better than Jan.”

“Who’s Jan?” asked Flash. Peter noticed the cellphone in his hand, noticed that Instagram was open and that he was live streaming the class, as if it couldn’t have gotten any worse.

“Oh my god,” whispered Peter. He sunk down in his chair, rested his chin on his desk, and covered his eyes with his hands, peaking out through his fingers “This can _not_ be happening.”

“I’ll tell you who Jan is,” said Mr. Stark. “She’s the person driving the Lexus who cuts you off in traffic, or that guy who reminds the teacher to hand out homework, or someone on the board of your daughter’s PTA, who suspends you for just taking an enthusiastic interest in her education.”

“This seems a little personal…” said Betty, trailing off with Mr. Stark stuck a finger up to silence her.

“The point is, Jan’s everything we hate about the world, and it’s our mission to defeat them, all of them, at all costs.”

“Was Thanos a Jan?” asked Flash.

“Yes absolutely and look what happened to him.”

The class went silent, and Peter was left to wonder if the rest of his peers were thinking the same thing as him, if they were also questioning their lives and everything they did to lead up to this exact moment.

“Now,” said Mr. Stark. “First things first. Today we’re learning speed knitting.”

Peter let out a breath. He no longer had to wonder. He just knew.

*

After just a few days of teaching, Mr. Stark became the most popular teacher in Midtown High, even amongst the teachers themselves. Not only was he well-liked but calling people Jan became a popular insult around the school.

Once or twice, Peter heard Mr. Harrington attempting to be cool and telling students, “Remember, don’t be a Jan. Bullying’s uncool.”

It was at this Peter had no choice. He reached out to Pepper via text message, trying to put a stop to the madness.

_sorry Pete learn to live with it_

She sent him. A few seconds later it was followed by another one.

_this is ten times better than what he was up to before_

He slipped his phone into his pocket and did something he swore he’d never do. He approached Mr. Stark in the cafeteria and pulled him aside.

“Please,” said Peter. “I have to know. Why were you suspended from Morgan’s PTA?”

“Kid,” said Mr. Stark. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Peter slinked back off to his own table and sat down between Ned and MJ, from whom he got no sympathy.

*

Just when Peter thought things couldn’t get much worse Mr. Stark got Aunt May involved.

He put her charge of a field trip to the grocery store, where they were supposed to be searching for ingredients to make a dinner on a budget.

Peter, Ned and MJ were their own group, and as they pushed their cart down aisle one, flipping through a coupon book as they did, they overheard May, the next aisle over, telling Betty and Abe all about his childhood eating habits.

“I hate this class,” said Peter. He ripped a coupon out of the booklet and handed it over to Ned.

“I like it,” said Ned. “Dude, we’re on a field trip. At a grocery store.”

“Same,” said MJ. “This is actually… useful information.” She paused, gave Peter a look that kind of scared him. “You shouldn’t take it for granted, Parker. All these people in your life that care about you. I wish I had a mom that actually taught me how to cook, or someone who wanted to spend time with me enough they dropped everything and became a teacher.”

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it again, hating that MJ had a point. He supposed this was a lot better than having panic attacks in astronomy, even if May was now talking about that time when Peter was seven and wouldn’t go to bed without Mr. Fuzzy bear.

Leave it to MJ to remind him that Mr. Stark was just trying to help him, in his own ridiculous way, and May was taking time out of her busy schedule to teach other people’s teenagers how to grocery shop and cook.

After her comments, Peter kept his complaints and his embarrassment to himself.

*

It was a stormy Friday night when Peter laid between May and Mr. Stark on a blanket, blinking up at the ceiling above them. Looking at it, from the floor, and in the darkness of the room, you’d never be able to guess that the ceiling was, in fact, there, solid and real.

Projections and screens made it look like the night’s sky, made it look like they were outside, until it didn’t, until they moved so fast it made Peter feel like they were moving, like they were on a spacecraft speeding through the heavens.

He tensed in place as they flew past planets but May grabbed his hand and held onto it. Peter took a deep breath, everything was fine.

And by everything, he meant everything.

Eventually he learned to be okay with Mr. Stark being at his school, even learned to depend on it in a way. Days his anxiety got especially bad he took his lunch into Mr. Stark’s office and ate with him.

They didn’t really talk. Didn’t need to. Peter found safety in Mr. Stark’s presence, the same way he used to find safety in his Mr. Fuzzy bear when he was a little kid.

And those days, the days were he shook with anxiety, the days when the room spun, and he thought for sure he was just seconds away from dissolving into dust were dramatically becoming fewer and fewer.

Therapy, although sometimes Peter fought going, was working, and when he didn’t have Dr. Prewitt to talk to, he had an army of adults, and Morgan, who thought of herself as an adult, ready and willing to help him.

May squeezed his hand and Peter smiled at up the planets and the stars above.

Everything was fine.

There was still just one thing Peter wanted to know.

“Mr. Stark,” he said, still looking straight up. “Are you ever going to tell me why you got suspended from Morgan’s PTA?”

Mr. Stark laughed and bumped his shoulder. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you the story.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! 
> 
> kudos and/or comments let me know what you think!! 
> 
> [or come yell at me on tumblr](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


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